Back in 1946, Wally Johnson began to create the markets for the aerial work platforms and scaffold towers all by himself. He did this by starting a business that was called UpRight. Mr. Wally Johnson was a really skilled mechanical engineer who hailed from Berkeley, California. He stumbled upon access machines when he started looking for a solution to painting his home.
When Mr. Johnson was embarking on his house painting project, he had a futile search for scaffolding that could handle the uneven terrain that surrounded his house. After being very unsatisfied with his choices, he decided to design his very own aluminum scaffold tower complete with adjustable legs.
The Snorkel Company was also founded the same year in St. Joseph, Missouri. This small company helped to revolutionize the new elevating boom lift. The machine was produced for rescue and firefighting work. In less than twenty years, the technology had developed into self-propelled boom lifts.
The first self-propelled lift was sold by Snorkel in the year 1977. This particular product line did not take long to become the company's main business.
Wallace Johnson quickly catapulted to the top of the industry with his new scaffold. When he had attained this field, he decided to start all over and make the very first self-propelled aerial lift in the globe.
During the year 1972, Mr. Johnson opened a new factory within Selma. There he produced the "Flying Carpet" scissor lift. After this exciting and new machinery exploded onto the marketplace, the ground-breaking product soon out-ranked the scaffolding component as the main source of income of the company.
In the year 1980, Wallace Johnson passed away, while the company, UpRight Inc. was sold at that time too. Mr Johnson's inventive and pioneering spirit did continue to live on. During the year 1994, UpRight launched the world's very first micro-scissors. They went on to pioneer the TM12, which is the self-propelled mast lift.